Confusion, Paranoia, and Empathy in The Terror

[Note: this is an example of a post that is not yet fully revised. I drafted, then added new things, but didn’t totally finish everything up (yet). When I do, I’ll be separate out the bit about Jeanne Dielman…that’s too much for this post and it doesn’t even match the title]

I’m going to start with a little story so you can fully understand how I came to find the show I’m going to tell you about. In graduate school, I became obsessed with maritime literature and history. It started because I was really interested in the practice of amateur theatricals in the Victorian period (these performances, sometimes called “parlor theatricals,” provide key moments in many of the novels I was reading, and I wanted to know what they were actually like in reality). In a course on Herman Melville, I discovered that sailors in the nineteenth century also enjoyed putting on their favorite plays aboard ships during their many months at sea. This led me on trips to various archives, where I found many fascinating artifacts of these shipboard performances. One of those artifacts was a handwritten shipboard newspaper called The Illustrated Arctic News, which was produced in 1850 aboard one of the ships hunting for the lost Franklin expedition, years after it had left from England in search of The Northwest Passage. The newspaper was fascinating to me because there were detailed reviews of the plays performed aboard the ships as they were trapped in the ice over the winter.

How did The Terror Find Me?

Despite my obsession with maritime literature and culture, I heard nothing about The Terror, a show that premiered on AMC in 2018 and offered a story about what life was like for the officers and sailors of the Franklin expedition as they got trapped in the ice and died of disease, violence, and starvation. So, how did I learn about this incredible show that was already wildly popular and totally relevant to my interests? Through an e-mail to an academic listserv. This summer, a colleague sent an e-mail to the C-19 listserv, encouraging scholars in the field to consider submitting a paper to a conference that was created by fans of the show. The conference is called TerrorCamp, and I imagine it will be a blend of a literature conference and a Comic-Con event (I’ve proposed a presentation so I might be able to tell you all about it in December!).

Here’s what Hester posted:

Hi all,

The following CFP may at first seem far afield to C19 interests, but I encourage you to take a look if you are into environmental humanities and/or having your academic conferencing mind blown. I attended last year’s Terror Camp and the event was electrifying and transformative. It made academia feel new, and made different intellectual futures seem possible. (This great article on the conference gives a glimpse of what I mean: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-terror-amc-camp-fandom). Outside of C19 it’s the best conference I’ve ever attended and I hope some of you will be interested.

yours,

Hester

I wanted to watch the show instantly, but I was frustrated to find it wasn’t available on any of the channels I subscribe to. So, I went on Amazon and BOUGHT THE DVD. I haven’t done that in many years, but it seemed to be the same cost and then I’d have it forever (I was sure I’d be re-watching it). When it came in the mail, I got the DVD player out of the drawer where it had been living since we moved three years ago, and hooked it up to the TV. I then had to search the house to find the remote for the DVD player, which was inside a box in a chest that my husband thought he remembered having random remotes. It was pretty frustrating. I had the DVD in my hand, but couldn’t get at The Terror!!

I overcame these challenges and watched a few episodes via DVD (navigating the totally not-intuitive interface of the DVD player to turn on the closed captions because I definitely couldn’t understand what anyone was saying). And then, my husband said at breakfast one day, “Oh, guess what’s coming to Netflix?”

The Terror.

I watched the rest of it on Netflix. It was just easier. Also, now it’s in my viewing history so maybe they show me some other cool things related to interests they didn’t know I had.

My point in sharing this story is that this new thing that I watched found me. I finished my dissertation and published a few articles on shipboard performance, but mostly thought it was an EXTREMELY niche interest that the rest of the world (even the world of literature and theater historians) didn’t really care about. I had filed it away and wasn’t actively looking for films and shows that represented the sea. But then Hester’s e-mail to the listserv found me and I went hunting for a way to watch it.

My Experiences During The Terror (and the features prompting them and the techniques used to create those features)

Confusion

I’ll flesh this out in my revised draft, but the first emotion I felt was confusion because I didn’t know what was going on and I could understand what anyone was saying. The show opens with a scene that isn’t explained in any way, and I just sort of settled into the feeling of confusion (part of it was intentional, I think), but I did turn on the subtitles so I could at least figure out what the characters were saying.

I think this is a technique of narration. The story has a particular timeline, but we experience a scene that happens after it is all over and then we’re transported to the beginning of the expedition, and then get flashbacks from time to time (or insight into what’s happening back in England as people are starting to worry because the expedition hasn’t returned). Another feature of narration is the choice to have the characters speak fast and make it challenging to follow everything that’s happening. The technique that causes this feeling of confusion is that everything is not explained to you. You get a part of the story, but not all of the pieces. And this confusion actually prompted me to feel curious. I need to mention that. It didn’t make me quit. It made me keep going so I could understand.

Paranoia

There are some characters in this show that I can’t figure out. There’s something just a little off-putting and I can’t figure out what they are or what they’re doing. This makes me feel on guard–always considering in my mind another way of interpreting their behavior. There is a story, but I feel like there’s an author making a point through his telling of this story.

Lady Silence Early in the season, the ships get stuck in the ice and one of the groups sent out to find leads accidentally kills a Netsilik man (mistaking him for a bear). His daughter comes aboard the ship with him as they try to treat his wounds, but he winds up dying. She speaks at first to a few officers who have learned her language in previous voyages to the region, but eventually cuts out her tongue as she assumes the shaman role her father once held. Her interaction with other characters is fascinating and I am still trying to figure out what she thinks about these ridiculous British people who shouldn’t be where they are.

The Creature At first, the crew thinks men are being killed by a polar bear. But then when they set up a blind to trap the bear, it ambushes them and drags the captain’s body into the spot where the shaman’s body was unceremoniously buried–a very deliberate move that makes it clear that it’s not just a bear. I’ve spent the entire show trying to figure out how I’m supposed to interpret the creature (is it supernatural or an illusion created by the Netsilik people?)

I think the technique in all of these cases is allegory, but it’s not the way allegory typically works. There are plenty of stories in which characters are meant to represent something and things are fairly straightforward. This is allegory where I don’t trust my interpretation of what things are supposed to mean. I think the creators of this show are messing with me and I’m constantly trying not to be duped.

Empathy

There is a depiction of alcoholism in the show that makes it easier to understand the perspective of someone who suffers with addiction. There are lots of little narrative techniques that work together to make this effect. It starts with establishing that his behavior is shameful to him and his fellow officers (we see them talking about him when he’s not around).

But then he decides to get sober and the man who cares for him as he goes through withdrawal (Jopson, the Captain’s steward) shares a story with him about his mother’s addiction to laudanum. And the captain shares his own story. I thought the scene provided a really powerful explanation of the hard-to-articulate existential anguish that prompts people to numb themselves with substances (and we see that he comes out of it). We see this character apologize, and so we can feel empathy for him and forgive him. The technique is that apology

Okay, I’m leaving the paragraph above because it’s what I wrote from my recollection of the show. I’m sort of startled by how different I think this works now that I’ve looked carefully at the actual scene. And it wasn’t easy to do. I thought I could find a clip, but no one has thought that particular scene was worth pirating for YouTube (yet), so I had to do it. I first tried to just do a screen recording, but of course Netflix has something set up to interfere with that working. So I did what every bootlegger in a movie theater does…I used my phone. And the recording is terrible. And…it’s also too big to upload to this site (it’s only a little over three minutes!). I looked around for the script so I wouldn’t have to transcribe everything and found this site. I used the text there to turn it into the dialogue I’m quoting below , and I’m adding in the way the characters acted to sort of show what I noticed in the scene.

Crozier: Why are you doing that?
Jopson: Dr. MacDonald will be here soon.
Crozier: Dr. MacDonald won’t mind if I have hair astray.
Jopson: Turmoil on the inside needn’t show on the out, sir.
Crozier: You forget, I’ve gotten turmoil all over you, and the bed, in the last hour alone.
Just let me lie in it.
It will teach me.
Jopson: It is you, sir, who is teaching the rest of us.
Crozier: Jopson yours is the only company that I don’t completely hate right now.
Now, don’t push it.
Jopson: How do you feel?
Crozier: Like Christ, but with more nails.
Jopson: Sir.
Here.
Only sips, sir.
Crozier: More.
Jopson: No.
The doctor is the captain in this matter, sir.
Full stop.
Crozier: You’ve done this before.
Who was it? [Jopson acts like he doesn’t want to answer the question] Every word I say hurts.
Don’t get mysterious, Jopson.
Jopson: It was my mother, sir.
Crozier: Your mother?
Yeah.
She She took my brother to a circus in Marylebone.
The crowd was seated up on risers.
You know how they pack them in to sell more seats.
My brother dropped his shoe beneath him.
But they were low enough that my mother could reach and get it.
And that’s when the whole contraption collapsed.
Her hand was smashed.
She kept it, but it was too maimed to ever use again.
And the only thing that would take away the pain was laudanum.
Crozier: You were a boy?
Jopson: No.
No, this was just before we set sail to the Antarctic in ’39.
She wanted me to go.
She didn’t want me to miss the opportunity.
But she was a different woman by the time we got back.
Pardon me, sir. [Jopson trying to change the subject and stop the story]
Crozier: No, go on.
Well, the problem was it made her happy.
She would stop breathing in the night.
She would soil herself.
She would get mesmerized to the point where she would forget to feed my brother or herself for days.
But it took away her pain and it made her laugh.
I don’t like to hear a woman laughing now, sir.
Our neighbor was a nursemaid from the workhouse, and she helped me taper mother off it for three weeks.
Crozier: How did she fair when she was through it?
Another officer: Hello.
Shooting the cuff, eh, sir? You look ready to dance a polonaise.
Crozier: Thomas.
Jopson: I got you, Captain.
You can count on that, sir.

What I actually think I love about this scene is that Jopson is basically pointing out that it was a horrible accident that created the pain that prompted his mother to become addicted to laudanum. I don’t know why I felt like Crozier offered an explanation for his own addiction. He doesn’t say anything. He just listens (slightly terrified) and wants to know if Jopson’s mother came out of it. They’re interrupted before Jopson can really answer. Instead, Jopson says, “I got you, Captain” (insinuating that his mother wasn’t better after detox–and we can only imagine since the pain in her hand would be back). Crozier does essentially take responsibility for his behavior in a previous scene when he decides to get sober and tells all of the officers that he will need their support as he tries to detox (he says they are not to give in when he begs for whiskey). But this was the scene that was more powerful to me, and I think it’s because of the way it frames addiction. Jopson’s perspective on his mother’s addiction offers a new way of thinking about Crozier’s addiction.

Tallying up Experiences, Features, and Techniques

Experience	Feature (very brief desc.)	Technique
Curiosity (after confusion)	Very dark, hard to understand at first	Colloquial language and minimal lighting (realism)
Paranoia	Allegorical characters who are hard to interpret	Vigilance Trigger
Empathy	Crozier’s Alcoholism	Apology + Hamartia

Could I Help The Terror Find Its Ideal Audience?

I’d love to see more people find The Terror, whether they’re interested in maritime history or if they know nothing about the period or topic, but appreciate the experiences it provides. People who like horror will like this–particularly psychological horror. I looked at the show on Netflix to see if I could find what features it is using to recommend the show and found this

From this, I can tell that it’s in a genre called “Period Pieces,” but Netflix could really specify the particular period it’s in. It gives the adjectives “scary, gritty, suspenseful.” I mentioned the suspense so that’s working, but what about the other things? I think gritty means that it shows unpleasant aspects of reality and that’s accurate. People who don’t like to see dirty men eating rotten food probably know to stay away from “gritty” things. But there are some things that could be added.

There’s another interesting place where features of films get curated by the general public. It’s always hard for me to find, but if you look up a film on IMDB and scroll around, you’ll eventually find “plot keywords.” These plot keywords give you a sense of features that might lead you to other shows with the same features. Here’s The IMDB Plot Keywords for The Terror. I could see these being useful (but do people really just seek out movies in which people cut their tongues out?). I actually think the best way to recommend The Terror is to recommend it to people who are looking for the following things:

empathy-inducing depiction of alcoholism

paranoia-inducing allegorical characters

curiosity-inducing portrayal of a fascinating moment in history

Outside of a class like this, where a professor helps you understand the experiences you enjoy and find more creative works that might do the same thing, I’m not sure how people would know to even look for these things–I’m still thinking through this.

Also, I found something new at Best Video

I loved visiting Best Video and felt slightly overwhelmed by the many options. Like, I would look in a section, find something that was interesting and then think–but is that what I want to watch right now? I just couldn’t settle on a thing, but I knew I wanted to rent something. So then I realized that when Rai was giving us a tour, she mentioned that she was really happy that Chantal Akerman now has a spot in the director’s section. I asked her which Akerman she thought I should start with and she walked me over and pulled this off the shelf. She said, “I won’t pronounce it properly–it’s in French. But this. You should watch this.” And I was delighted to have her help. I felt like what I think Ben must have felt when his brother recommended Persona. So, what did Rai recommend?

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

And as she took the DVD out of the case and cleaned it, placed it back in the case and snapped it closed she said, “It starts slow. Stick with it. It’s worth it.” And then she said, “I can’t wait to hear what you think.” I can’t really put into words how exciting it was to have this recommendation and guidance as I went home with a movie I didn’t know existed when I walked in.

And I watched it. I watched for one hour on Wednesday night. And then another hour on Thursday. I finally finished it Friday night (turns out, it’s 201 minutes long). The first thing I felt was kind of entranced by the the elegance of the woman and the way she goes about her day. It felt elegant to me because it was Beligium in the 70s. Her apartment was small, the elevator was really cool, there was a satisfying click when she would turn the lights on and off.

And then I realized that maybe this wasn’t just establishing who the character was, but this might actually be the movie. That maybe I would be watching this woman do chores for the entire film. Would something interrupt her routine? Would she meet someone and run away? Or would we stay in this routine? The feature is the fact that we are seeing everything–not just short scenes. We are shown the mundane. And this is a technique associated with slow cinema, a genre that this film definitely fits into. More specifically, though, this is about a long take with a stationary camera.

Oh, I should mention that I worried for a little bit about the DVD because it turns out some of the buttons on my DVD player remote don’t work any more. I couldn’t figure out how to turn the subtitles on, and I knew it was in French so I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to watch it. But then I started it and realized that the subtitles were on by default AND it wouldn’t really have mattered because there’s VERY little dialogue in the film. It’s mostly a woman in her forties doing chores. And you watch her do these chores with very little expression and no music and a completely still camera for a very long time.

So the next thing I felt was bored. I think I looked at my phone at one point. But then I looked back and was sort of marveling at the meticulous way she did things. It kind of reminded me of this YouTube channel that was recommended to me during the pandemic where it’s just footage of a woman doing chores in her house. But in those videos, there’s music and it’s sort of capturing beautiful light and it’s not really like this. The film showed this woman doing mundane tasks like making food.

Oh, and another emotion I felt was curiosity because one of the chores this woman did involved answering the door, walking with a man to a room at the end of the hall, and closing the door. She then opened the door and walked again with the man to her door, handing him his coat, getting money from him, and the closing the door after him as he said “see you next Monday” (or whatever day he said). So, I guess she is taking money for sex, but I can’t be sure that’s what she’s doing and I’m curious why she might be doing this. Does she need the money? Will she escape this boring life with the money?

And right after this she has a bath (you watch her take a bath and very meticulously clean all of her body and then she comes back, dressed, and scrubs the tub very thoroughly). And then she finishes preparing dinner (it had been cooking while she was in the bedroom with this man). And lays everything out perfectly for two and then a man walks in and she greets him and takes his coat and hangs it up and he goes to sit down on the sofa and then she brings dinner in and they sit together at the table, not speaking, while they eat, and then she cleans up and then they do a little after dinner relaxation (she reads aloud a note from a relative, which reveals that the man is her son and that her husband has died and that the family thinks she should remarry).

Here’s a moment after she overcooked the potatoes (while she was in the bedroom with another client), so she had to go out to the store . You realize at this point that dinner is not going to be ready by the time her son comes home and I’m honestly feeling pretty stressed for her at this point.

Works Cited

Going to do this later. It is late.